The Burdens We Must Bear
by Emerson Quinn
Summary: Vignette. A discussion about fate and free choice. Luke Skywalker/Ben Skywalker


The Burdens We Must Bear

The sun is just setting now, slowly descending behind him as he sits at the table. It flames just past him, washing over my son with a red-gold fire, sending fingers of light through his hair. The glow of the sun only deepens the red of his hair, and alternately brightens the gold which highlights it. He is tinkering with his lightsabre again, modifying it for the umpteenth time. For a moment, he is silhouetted against the wide bay window, a darkened shadow with a brilliant corona around him. Then the sun moves ever lower and his eyes come up to meet mine as he feels me watching him. The red gold hair, I know, he inherited from Mara, but his eyes...they are his grandfather's, they are mine...they are Ben's legacy...and his burden.

He's been a little lost since Mara died...we all have. But I know that it affects him in a more introspective and quiet way. He suffers inwardly, but he is bearing his sorrow with more grace than I am able to sustain. I can see it in his eyes, even if others cannot. He's been thrust back into the spotlight now, with the murder of his mother, and that makes him extremely uncomfortable. It is engrossing to watch him as he struggles with his fame. I can sympathize with him...galaxy-wide renown wasn't what I was out to achieve either.

Like Father, like Son...

Ben's concerned with other things as well.

I give him a soft, sad smile, and he pauses only for a moment more before returning to his work. So I stand and observe him silently. He knows I am there, of course, but tolerates my presence...for a time.

It's moments like these that I treasure. He has been away from us...from me, far too much in his young life. So I take this time, hoard these fleeting instances of being together with a fierce protectiveness. I am waiting for him to open up to me...but I will not pry.

I know what his worries are, even without him voicing them, without my searching questions, without betraying him with the Force. I know because he is facing the same uncertainty, the same lapse of faith, the same ambivalence of destiny that I'd faced.

And still face.

While most of the galaxy believes that Leia and I have stepped out of the shadow of our heritage, we neither of us have completely overcome the burden of our legacy. That was never more apparent than now. And while Han and Leia's children are Skywalkers by blood, they had the opportunity to begin a new inheritance with the gift of their father's name. But now... now Anakin is gone, Jaina is struggling under the weight of her family love and duty, and Jacen has become someone we can no longer recognize.

Or perhaps we can.

That must be what if foremost in my son's mind as he absently adjusts his lightsabre. Jacen was his mentor, his friend, and his hero. Maybe even more so than I. And now he has turned into the very thing Ben has been taught to resist. What his grandfather became.

A Dark Lord of the Sith.

Ben knows all too well the history of his family. He could never escape it. Even were he not my son, he would have learned about Anakin Skywalker and his fall to Darkness. The children Ben has been raised with are in awe of him, then as now, and that has weighed him down as well. His name, to him, is everything he must live up to and everything he'd rather forget.

This is what we had been afraid of, Mara and I.

My mind turns to the conversations we'd had before Ben was born. The pregnancy had been a surprise, a wonderful and frightening surprise. We had spent hours discussing how to raise him, what to teach him, how much freedom and how much restraint to apply to him...

And what to name him.

We received, oh...countless submissions from every corner of the galaxy once the pregnancy became common knowledge. Names poured in from friends and strangers alike. We actually read over most of them, intrigued by the variety and meaning of each, trying out sounds that didn't exist in Basic, listening to the way each one flowed into his surname of Skywalker...or laughed over the absurdity of the clash of syllables. But we always came back to Ben. I'd worried over what Mara would think, the first time I mentioned it to her, but she didn't seem the least bit taken aback. She knew what Obi-Wan had meant to me, and that this was a way to honour him. But she was also wise enough to realize how it may affect our son in the future. It was a name, an ordinary enough name to be sure. Probably common on several planets which spoke Basic. But when coupled with Skywalker...it took on a different tone. We turned that over in our minds all throughout Mara's pregnancy. I'm not sure we were even certain what we _would _call him right up until the moment he was born. Then we knew.

He was Ben. Our Ben.

Not Ben the son of the Grand Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Not Ben the grandson of the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader. Not Ben the nephew of former Chief of State Leia Organa Solo. Not Ben of a tragic and proud inheritance.

Just Ben.

And he was, for a while, just Ben. But no one stays a child forever, and Ben has had to grow up very, very fast. I at least was fortunate enough, in a way, to lead a relatively normal childhood. My legacy didn't hit me full force until I was eighteen standard years old. Ben has been struggling under the weight of his history all his life, slowly taking on more and more of the burden. But perhaps he's luckier than I was. The entirety of my destiny struck me all in an instant. I almost broke under the strain of it. Maybe he is stronger than I.

But that is just mincing words. It does not change the fact that we both of us must live with the legend of Vader...with the wary distrust of some, with the groveling worship of others...with a reluctant commitment to our unavoidable duties. And the fear of turning to the Dark Side ourselves.

Like Jacen.

I know Ben yearns for his mother. Somehow I think they'd been able to confide in each other more than he and I. But then Mara had always seen things a little more black and white, with less layers of gray...so, it was natural for Ben to turn to his mother for advice. She had the ability to put things into perspective for him, show him the boundaries...something I was less able to do, ironically. Ironic because he was living the same uncertainty I had...and I could not blame him for turning to Mara. Because I was still living it myself.

It is at this moment Ben chooses to break the silence. He does not look up to me, but continues with his work. "Dad?" he asks. He never calls me that anywhere but in private. When he is with others, he always refers to me as 'Father'. It is a measure of respect for me and a way to keep our relationship more formal when in public. And while hearing him call me 'Father' brings me a sense of pride, I'd still rather hear him call me 'Dad'. It gives me hope that he still considers us close.

His utterance is simple and I answer him in kind. "Yes, Ben?" I am unsure if this will be an easy conversation, an avoidance of the issues, or a full-out emotional breakdown. My son never fails to surprise me and this time is no different.

"Did you love your Father?" he looks up to me now, blue meeting blue.

I tilt my head to the side a bit, looking at him with a new angle, as if that somehow will help me see exactly where he is coming from. "Yes.." I reply slowly. "You know that, Ben. I've told you that... your whole life. I loved my Father." I shift slightly. "Why?"

"How could you? After he abandoned you, became Darth Vader." He looks down to his lightsabre lying on the Greel wood table. "Vader wasn't exactly someone you could look up to after that. He wasn't what you'd expected to find, was he, Father?"

Back to Father, now. Serious business, this.

"No…not at first. I...it's more complicated than that, Ben. Obviously I didn't expect to find my Father in Vader. I was raised to believe that Anakin Skywalker was dead...killed by Vader. I'd learned to love Anakin and hate Vader. Reconciling those two beings and those two emotions was a trying, exhausting experience."

He nods slowly, and I know it's because he's not just speaking about Vader. He's thinking now of his cousin. "But how do you accomplish that? How is it possible to love someone you despise so much?" Ben runs a hand through his hair, a gesture he's inherited from me. "Or, how are you able to hold onto the love you had for someone, once they've destroyed your entire world?" He stands now, pacing over to the wide bay window, and watches the traffic stream by. Thousands of beings going on about their business, with no thoughts in their minds of the struggle that is warring in Ben. "I fear, more than anything, Father, that my hatred for what Jacen has done will drive me to the Dark Side as well. I am living in terror of turning into what half the galaxy believes I am _destined _to become. What Jacen has become." He turns slowly back to face me. "Fulfilling the Skywalker curse."

I sigh, unsure where to start. "Ben...", but I am unable to continue.

He waits for me to speak, then gives a decisive nod. "That's what I thought. There is no answer, is there? Do we have any choice in the matter, or is everything that happens predestined?" A beat. "And if it _is _pre-destined, then...then why do anything at all? Why fight...why...go on?"

Interesting turn.

The sun has finally descended below the horizon, and the skyline is littered with the glowing, twinkling lights of the city. I move to stand next to him, both of us gazing out the window now.

I answer him lowly. "That, my son, is a question I've been trying to answer for most of my life."

He purses his mouth, thinking. "Doesn't the Force tell you, Father? In all your years of study, the rank you've achieved...haven't you learned what it is that governs our lives?"

I surprise him with a small laugh, and he gives me a quizzical look. "You sound like me, son. Just like me."

"What do you mean, Father?"

I clasp my hands in front of me. "Do you recall when I told the about the time I took your mother to Endor, all those years after Vader's death?"

He furrows his brow, not sure where I am going with this. "Yes, I remember. You told me that was the first time you were really able to accept your past...and let it go."

I smile at him. Nothing escapes his memory. He could probably recall everything Mara or I have ever said to him. Every lesson.

"That's right. And while we were there, we had a discussion about any future children we may have," I pat his back affectionately, "and we debated nature versus nurture in the role of raising those children."

"So what did you conclude?" he asks me.

"We didn't really come to an answer, Ben. Not one way or another, in any case. It was more of a marriage between the two ideas." I thread my fingers together to emphasize the point.

He looks over to the table again, at his lightsabre lying lifelessly on the slightly worn wood. Years of dinners and projects, plans and playtimes are reflected in its surface. A scratch here, a scuff there. We never bothered to keep it in pristine condition. We'd rather have it a testament to a happy home and a life well lived than viewed as a museum piece...protected and polished.

"So you're saying that destiny and free choice are interwoven as well?" He walks over to pick up his lightsabre, hefting it into his hands. "How is that possible, Father? Aren't they mutually exclusive?"

A slow, ironic smile spreads over my face. "They might be, from a certain point of view. Or," I shrug, "on the other hand..."

Ben gives me a roll of his eyes, one of Mara's gestures, and replies, "Don't get all Obi-Wan on _me_, Dad. I can quote the old man just as well as _you_."

"Fair enough. I could also say that only a Sith will deal in absolutes. You remember that too, don't you Ben?"

He inhales loudly in the room, and lets it out slowly. "True. But I have a hard time accepting that I, or anyone, is able to choose their own path and that they have some sort of grand destiny in store for them as well. It just...doesn't make _sense_."

I move over to stand by him. He's my height now, but he's also not yet fully grown. He could gain a few more inches on me yet. Perhaps he'll inherit his grandfather's height, in the end. "I understand, Ben, truly I do. I wouldn't be completely honest if I didn't say that I still don't know how to work it out myself. But I do believe there are no coincidences. It could not have just been chance that I met Han and Chewie that day on in Mos Eisley. Or that the droids found me in the first place... or even that R2 played the message from your Aunt Leia. I _chose _to go with Obi-Wan that day, I _chose _to stay with the Alliance... but I could not escape my destiny. I would have to face my Father in the end."

I take the lightsabre from him, turning it over in my hands, examining his work. He murmurs to me, "What if you hadn't gone with Obi-Wan? What if you'd gone to the academy like you'd planned?" Ben is still searching. "Wouldn't things be different, Dad?"

I frown, thinking. "Perhaps...but I'm not convinced, Ben. If I'd gone to the academy, Vader still would have found me...and I've no doubt he would have told me who he was. If he used our familial connection to try to turn me on Bespin, I _know _he would have used it to his advantage if I'd enrolled at the academy. We would have been on the same side, then, _technically_."

Ben gives me a disbelieving look. He takes back his lightsabre. "But I though you said you hated the Empire, even then..."

I nod. "I did, son. Which is my point. I would have been wearing an Imperial uniform, but my ethics would have been the same. I would have ended up fighting my Father either way. So..." I raise one hand then the other, scales holding the untouchable essence of _what if_.

My son lifts his chin as he speaks, something which reminds me of my Father. "So..." he trails off, unable to articulate what he wants to say.

"Listen, Ben. There are some religions in this galaxy that will preach that you have free choice, and some that you are a part of a bigger plan. There are those that honour the Force, the Jedi...and those that are repulsed by it... even some for whom the Force doesn't exist. Take the Yuuzhan Vong, for example...or the Ysalamiri, who can repel the Force." He is wearing a patient look on his face, but I can tell Ben is waiting for me to get to the point. "There are many paths to the truth, Ben. We tread but one of them."

A look passes over his face. Perhaps it is realization dawning. The beginning of understanding. "I guess I'll never really be able to reconcile it in my mind, Dad. But I feel like I can see both points a little better." Ben lifts his lightsabre with the Force, moving it in a graceful arc from his hands to the table again. Pushing in a chair, he settles his hands on the back of it and leans forward, as if the weight of what is in his mind can physically stoop him.

"What about Jacen?"

I knew we'd get back to this eventually. This is hard...maybe even harder than when I'd faced my Father. Then there was no extended family. Just Vader and myself. Leia was a consideration, later...but in her mind Vader was evil itself, and there was no question of what to do. She'd been much less affected by his death than I.

But now... Now we are dealing with my nephew. A child I'd helped raise and train. A boy Mara had loved almost as much as her own son. The pride of his father's eye. There are immense implications with his fall to the Dark Side, and I know those who do not support the new Jedi order will pounce on his turning as evidence that the Jedi are dangerous.

That the Skywalker name is cursed.

That it is our _destiny _to fall.

And maybe they're right.

I shake my head, both in an attempt to rid it of these fatalistic thoughts and in answer to my son's query. Before I can answer, Ben adds, "Does he think he's on his own path to the truth?"

I weight this question before responding. "In his mind...yes. Jacen thinks he's doing what's best for the galaxy."

He slams a hand down on the table, resonating loudly in the otherwise quiet apartment. But his voice is low, an angry whisper. "Was killing Mom what was best for the galaxy?"

I reach for him, think the better of it, and clasp my hands together in front of me. It is a redundant question and I do not reply. He continues after a brief pause. "And if I go after him...if I kill him. Is that what's best for the galaxy too?" Ben looks up to me, his face twisted with grief. His eyes..._my eyes_...are shining with unshed tears.

"I don't know, Ben." I remember when I was in this exact same position, so many years ago. "Perhaps...perhaps we aren't meant to kill him, son. Maybe we need to approach him the same way I approached Vader." I do reach out to him now, placing an arm across his shoulders. "With compassion. With love."

Ben shakes off my arm and stands upright. He levels a darkly intense gaze at me, and I take a step back. "You ask too much, Father."

I am taken aback at his outburst. He is to the point and direct...yes. But always compassionate and kind. He has _never _spoken to me in such a way. But I understand his frustration. It is the same antagonism I had felt when Obi-Wan told me I had to _kill _Vader. I felt he'd gone too far. How ironic that the roles and sentiments were reversed now.

He strides away from me, calling his lightsabre to his hand with the Force. He heads toward the balcony, through the slightly opened doors and onto the pale grey duracrete. Ben stands facing the cityscape, wind tousling his hair. He does not look at me when I move to join him, merely shakes his head slowly.

"What will I become if I kill him, Father?" he asks brokenly. "What will I become?" And I know that it is this question which has been haunting him since he learned that Jacen had killed his mother.

I think I know how to answer him, although I do not believe it will make anything easier for him. "What you choose to become, son. What you're _meant _to be."

I place my hand on his shoulder again, trying to soothe his addled mind. "It is what it means to be a Skywalker, Ben. What it means to be a Jedi." I drop my hand from him, and keep my gaze steady to the horizon. "It is the burden we must bear."

I leave him then, alone on the balcony. There are some things I will never be able to decide for him, and I know in my heart his destiny is his own. I can try to ease his burdens, but he will, eventually, have to carry on alone.

He is my son, he is a Jedi, he is a Skywalker.

I have to believe he is strong enough.


End file.
